An Inaudible God?

A Dvar Torah I wrote last week. Apologies for the lack of translations, which made more sense given that audience. I’m not completely convinced that the last paragraph is the full answer to the question, but I think it is the beginning of one. Enjoy.

We read of keriyat yam suf this week, in Parshat Beshalach, and of the giving of the torah at Har Sinai next week, in Parshat Yitro. Reading about these open miracles and revelations emphasizes by contrast how different our current relationship to God is from that of bnei yisrael in the desert. God, who appeared to the generation leaving Egypt as a voice so powerful that they could not bear to listen, has become an inaudible whisper. While some of this change is due to the Exile, and is something we mourn every tisha b’av, that is not the whole story.
This transition in God’s relationship to us can be seen throughout the tanach itself, well before the building, let alone destruction of, the beit hamikdash. The grand miracles of kriyat yam suf, matan torah, the mann, etc. give way to the lesser miracles that accompany the conquering of the land (splitting the Jordan, collapsing the walls of Jericho), the still lesser miracles of the early prophets (Eliyahu and Elisha’s miracles), the prophesy of the later prophets, the end of prophesy, and finally culminating with stories such as megillat esther, where God’s name is (famously) not even mentioned.

The clearest expression of this decline, and perhaps the key to understanding it, can be found in the story of Eliyahu HaNavi. He was a fiery personality who, in his attempt to wean the people off Ba’al worship, tried to recreate a Har Sinai type experience on Har HaKarmel (at which the people proclaim “Hashem Hu HaElokim” after witnessing an open miracle). Afterwards, he is chased to the original site of the Revelation, Sinai. God shows him thunder and earthquake, fire and wind, in order to show him that “God is not in the wind,” “God is not in the fire.” This is in clear contrast to matan torah, when that is precisely how God revealed himself – in fire and thunder. But this time, God is instead found in the “Slight, soft whisper” (kol demama daka). God is telling Eliyahu that the time for pyrotechnics and open miracles has passed. Now, God is found in so subtle a whisper that it can be missed, or ignored. A whisper that has to be carefully listened for, and can be easily drowned out. He is telling Eliyahu that the ecstasy of the revelation Eliyahu created at Har HaKarmel will not last and is not desirable at this stage in history, and that Eliyahu’s role is instead to show the people how to find and listen to that kol demama daka.

Why this transition? Bnei Yisrael in the desert are compared in many places to a person in the early stages of life – a baby eagle on its mothers wings, a young bride engaged to be married. Perhaps the message is that a child needs a parent to be there constantly, needs constant guiding and watching. But any good parent must eventually let go, and let the child make his own mistakes and find his own way, hoping that he will make good choices, and perhaps giving him subtle guidance here and there, if the child is open to it. Adulthood means becoming independent, internalizing the messages that the parent has passed on so that the parent doesn’t have to constantly guide. It means making our own mistakes and living with the consequences, and it means listening very carefully for His “soft whisper” in our own lives in order to have any chance of hearing it.